Re: Wattage for extension passive speaker cabinet
Originally Posted by
Teak
... if I buy a passive speaker that handles up to 20 watts ... I am assuming that the extension speaker becomes the weaker link if I don't get one that is rated up to 50 watts, or higher.
A BIG problem with comparing speaker specs is that "power handling", the ability to tolerate an electrical input without melting down, has no direct relationship with "sound efficiency", the ability to turn a power signal into some volume of actual sound.
It's entirely possible that, when fed a signal of, let's say, 3 watts (in most non-distorted uses, amplifiers loaf along at WELL below their rated power most the time), a speaker rated to handle 20 watts could be louder than another that's rated to handle 200 watts. But such "efficiency" is so rarely spec'd, and so incomprehensible, that most tend to ignore it. (OTOH, a higher-wattage-rated speaker might be no louder but far more accurate than a lower-rated one, and that's often considered a good thing).
So, assuming that distortion is normally avoided, a 20-watt "rated" extension speaker could work with a 200-watt amp, because the amp will rarely exceed the speaker's handling ability, and then only momentarily. I'm not recommending such, only saying that it can work based on the speaker's relative efficiency.
Aside comment on "power": It takes a doubling of electrical power (watts) to raise the acoustic signal by 3db, a doubling of acoustic power. BUT we humans don't hear that way - it normally takes an additional 10db of acoustic power for us to perceive "twice as loud". Thus, 40 watts, to us, is not twice as loud as 20 watts; that takes a 10-fold increase in amp power to about 200 watts. Or looking another way: 3db + 3bd + 3bd + 1db = 10bd, with each "3bd" requiring a doubling of available wattage.
While this really doesn't answer the original question, it should help explain why that question doesn't have a clear & precise answer.
- Ed
"Then one day we weren't as young as before
Our mistakes weren't quite so easy to undo
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I'm a better man for just the knowin' of you."
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